


between here and all other points in time

by wordstruck



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Falling In Love, M/M, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 20:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14776475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/wordstruck
Summary: Later, Otabek opens the photo where he’s transferred it to his personal commpod. It still makes his breath catch, makes him wonder who this person is; he’s never known someone could look so -- beautiful.Yuri Plisetsky,the name given along with the article, along with a date of publication. 2021, a good seventy-six years in the past.Otabek looks at the data and contemplates. At 18, he’s technically still too young for unsupervised time travel, but he figures -- it’s there and back, it can’t hurt. He just wants to see this person skate, just once.The device he borrows has enough charge for one full leap, a there-and-back-again. He leaves an apology note with his professor, though, just in case.He’s never actually operated a time-travel device before, but Otabek figures he’ll be fine.(An Otayuri AU based on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)





	between here and all other points in time

**Author's Note:**

> This is the centerpiece fic for my Otayuri Fic Zine, which I made for YOICon 2018. It's inspired by The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, but it doesn't follow the exact plot, and also based on a [thread](https://twitter.com/okw_tr/status/874522225549889536) I made a long while back. Might expand on it someday, but for now I love it as is - it feels more poignant this way. XD
> 
> Read through and beta'd by [Slumber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slumber) on AO3! Thank you for being so encouraging about this project.

* * *

 

It begins with a photograph.

Otabek stumbles on it while he’s browsing through the archives, searching through a random period of human history. Truth be told he has more… significant things to be doing, since he’s technically supposed to be here looking up something for school, but one reference had led to another and now he finds himself caught browsing through old magazines. This one he’s chanced on talks about something called _figure skating_ , some sport that features humans gliding across the ice.

Otabek has never encountered the concept, so he finds this all intriguing. He flips through the digital pages, skimming through the article and the different skaters it talks about and-- There’s a few photos included, of this figure skater. The magazine calls him a _prodigy_ , an _unparalleled talent_. It talks about his breathtaking skills, how he was expected to repeat as a gold medalist for something called the Winter Games, how he was on his way to becoming one of the greatest figure skaters in history.

Otabek stares at one particular photo, breathes static into empty spaces. The skater is out on the ice, sunshine hair flying around him, arms extended so gracefully in what the caption calls an _Ina Bauer_. His eyes are closed and his expression is -- beatific, almost.

He’s stunning.

 

Later, Otabek opens the photo where he’s transferred it to his personal commpod. It still makes his breath catch, makes him wonder who this person is; he’s never known someone could look so -- beautiful.

 _Yuri Plisetsky,_ the name given along with the article, along with a date of publication. 2021, a good seventy-six years in the past.

Otabek looks at the data and contemplates. At 18, he’s technically still too young for unsupervised time travel, but he figures -- it’s there and back, it can’t hurt. He just wants to see this person skate, just once.

 

The device he borrows has enough charge for one full leap, a there-and-back-again. He leaves an apology note with his professor, though, just in case.

He’s never actually operated a time-travel device before, but Otabek figures he’ll be fine.

 

The first thing he sees, when his head clears, is darkness. He feels around himself, finds that he’s surrounded by what feels like storage. When he finally finds something that feels like an old-school light switch, he flicks in on.

Storage was right.

Carefully, quietly, he picks his way out of the room. He can hear chatter somewhere in the distance, and follows the noise. Soon he finds himself in what seems to be the lobby of a building, filled with people -- plenty of people.

Otabek figures the first thing he ought to do is orient himself with where and when he is. If he’d gotten it right, he ought to be in the year 2021, in a place called Beijing.

He gets distracted by the sound of yelling somewhere to his left.

 _“Yuri!”_ comes a booming, frustrated voice, and Otabek snaps his head around, because that name--

He spots sunshine hair through the crowd, a small and slender frame. _That could be him_ , Otabek thinks, and he picks his way through the mass of people, trying to get close. But the nearer he is, the more something troubles him; the person called Yuri seems a little -- not quite the same as he’d been in the photo.

“Get yourself checked in already!” shouts a middle-aged man standing nearby, red-faced and scowling. And the boy -- and _Yuri_ just… glowers right back, makes a face, and turns to the device he holds in his hand.

It _is_ Yuri Plisetsky, as Otabek realizes. It’s the skater from the magazine.

Otabek looks around, mildly distressed. He finds a banner strung across the far wall and his eyes widen in shock. It is 2016, and he’s in a place called Barcelona.

This… might be a problem.

 

It turns out that Otabek has overshot his time travel by five full years, although he’s still thankfully managed to end up in the same place as the boy he’s looking for. But speaking of, Yuri isn’t -- well, anything at all like Otabek had imagined. Thirty minutes of watching from a distance as Yuri and his coach hash things out, is enough to show Otabek that Yuri is loud, angry, stubborn, and quite honestly a brat.

(He’s also only fifteen years old, so perhaps Otabek can cut him some slack.)

It’s… disappointing, if Otabek’s honest, and it’s difficult to reconcile this vindictive boy with the person in the photograph. The physical resemblance is there, but considering the boy’s face seems to usually be contorted in a scowl, even that gets marred.

He briefly considers going back to his time period and abandoning his idea of watching Yuri skate in person. But, he reasons with himself, he’s come all this time back and he’s already here; there’s no harm in staying a little longer.

And something about Yuri simply -- compels him.

The figure skating competition is, apparently, divided into two parts. Otabek uses his vintage currency to get himself a seat to watch the short program, the first phase of the competition. Yuri is listed as the third to perform, a program called _On Love: Agape._

When he takes to the ice, a hush falls over the audience.

Otabek feels the static crackle in his lungs.

Yuri takes his place at the center of the rink, head bowed, arms loose at his sides.

There is a moment, a stillness, like an oncoming storm.

Then Yuri begins to skate.

The music is high and haunting, reverberating through the rink and through Otabek’s body. But it is nothing compared to the figure out on the ice, gliding across its surface with hands lifted as if in prayer and eyes turned to the heavens.

Otabek watches Yuri Plisetsky skate, and cannot tear his eyes away.

The boy on the ice is -- _breathtaking_ , an embodiment of grace and beauty; a force in and of himself, a resonance in heart and bones. Otabek looks at him, the jumps and the spins and the sunshine hair that under the lights looks like starlight -- Otabek looks and thinks, the photo hadn’t even come close.

Yuri ends his program, hands raised as if to offer, head thrown back and eyes shut. Around Otabek, the audience bursts into cheers, so loud he can barely hear the announcer. But it doesn’t matter; Otabek simply sits there and breathes and watches Yuri leave the ice.

The other performances come and go, but Otabek hardly pays attention. Instead he thinks about Yuri, and his performance, and how he was so much more than a photograph could ever show.

Otabek thinks, _I want to stay for this boy._

 

It is risky, to linger in a time that is not yours.

Otabek looks at the device in his hands and thinks, _just a little longer._

 

So Otabek takes his chances. He catches Yuri in the streets of Barcelona where the boy is apparently hiding away from his fans. They run through the streets, Yuri’s small hand in his, weaving their way around corners and past shops. Somehow, they end up at a park overlooking the city. And Yuri is -- just as brash and irate as he’d been the first time Otabek had seen him, telling Otabek that if he was trying to kidnap Yuri or sabotage him somehow, he had another thing coming.

“Do you say that to everyone who saves you, or is it just me,” Otabek says, smiling wryly. Because Yuri might be infuriating and a brat, but up close it’s almost amusing, the way it stems from Yuri’s clear, unflinching self-belief. It’s actually admirable how he’s managed to be so unapologetic for himself.

Yuri squints at him, clearly mistrustful, but Otabek just offers a good-natured shrug. The furrow in Yuri’s brow deepens. “Why _did_ you help me?” he asks, a little uncertain.

Otabek considers his answer. I _came from the future to find you and watch you skate, and now I want to stick around a while_ would get him decked in the face at minimum, and requires far too much explanation. But he looks at Yuri, at the way the setting sun paints him rose and gold, at the flecks in green eyes like starshine.

“You’re unforgettable,” Otabek says, honestly.

Yuri’s eyes widen, like he’s been caught off-guard. He flicks his gaze away, turns to lean on the ledge; his hair falls to hide his expression. And Otabek belatedly realizes he’s dealing with a young boy who’s far more complex than his skating and his photographs have ever let on.

(In hindsight, he should have discerned that sooner.)

He acts on instinct, holding out a hand and quirking a brow. “Will you be friends with me or not?”

Yuri looks from Otabek’s hand to his eyes. There’s something shuttered in his expression, but he reaches out tentatively, and there’s a tiny smile tugging at his mouth.

 

The next day, Otabek’s back in the stands to watch the free program. Around him, he can hear people cheering. Yuri skates onto the ice, the last to perform, a vision in black and pink like a fire licking up his skin.

“Davai!” Otabek calls, leaning forward.

Yuri looks up, searching the crowd. When he spots Otabek, he gives a tiny thumbs up.

 

 

Yuri skates, and Otabek wonders whether, if he stays long enough, there will come a time when this boy will not take his breath away.

 

It is difficult to stay in a time that is not his, but Otabek is willing to make the effort. He wrangles himself a job as a DJ and sound technician at a small club (and current technology takes some getting used to, but Otabek figures things out). He ends up in the same city as Yuri, where he learns about snow and _pirozhki_ and the way Yuri laughs, cheeks pink and eyes scrunched shut.

He gets to know Yuri, little by little by little, in all the small ways no one else gets to see.

“This is Potya,” Yuri tells him, dumping an irate cat in Otabek’s lap. The cat miaows disagreeably, digging her claws into Otabek’s thigh and looking at her owner askance. Yuri scratches her head to mollify her. “Well, Puma Tiger Scorpion, but Potya for short.”

“Puma-- what?” Otabek looks up, bemused, as he subtly tries to lift the pet off his lap before she causes serious injury.

“It sounds cool,” Yuri says defensively, picking Potya up and cradling her to his chest. He glares at Otabek as if daring him to say otherwise, cat squirming in his grip, and Otabek hastily rearranges his expression into what hopefully comes off as patient acceptance.

“I see,” is all he can manage, because it’s taking significant effort not to laugh. But then Potya screeches and turns herself loose from Yuri’s arms, and Otabek cracks, slumping back against the couch they’ve commandeered, in the apartment Yuri shares with his coach. He laughs until Yuri smacks a cushion right in his face, and then laughs some more, hand pressed to his mouth.

“Sorry,” he says, when he catches his breath. Yuri’s glaring furiously at him, a flush over high cheekbones. It’s horribly endearing. “It’s very cool, I believe you.”

“Shut up,” Yuri says again, trying to smother Otabek with the cushion, but Otabek tugs him down in retaliation. They collapse in a laughing, wheezing heap, with Yuri gasping for breath and Otabek grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

Being with Yuri -- it’s terrifyingly easy.

By now, Otabek has learned better, knows Yuri better, all initial impressions shattered. He’s long discovered Yuri wields anger and resentment like a shield, guarding himself from the hurt he’s suffered. Past the loudness and the stubbornness, Otabek’s found a young, insecure, determined boy who shelters an intensity inside of him that would stun anyone who saw him. Yuri does not give himself easily, but when he does, he comes with bright eyes and brighter smiles.

Otabek looks at him, sun-kissed on a clear St. Petersburg afternoon, and feels splinters in his throat.

Has to tell himself that he cannot let himself settle, that his time here has an expiry date.

 

(All these pieces of Yuri that he’s collected, they cannot make him stay.)

 

The idea comes to him one morning as he’s searching for a new pair of earphones. The stall behind him has a collection of quirky, “hipster” items, but there’s one in particular that Otabek finds himself drawn to. The Polaroid camera is small, green, and comes with two packs of film.

He buys two packs extra, and takes everything back to his tiny studio apartment.

Otabek begins to collect the tiny moments he has in this time, to take with him when he leaves (because he will; because he has to). It takes a while to get used to the camera, and he wastes a lot of film at first, the shots blurred or out-of-focus or incorrectly taken. But Yuri helps him figure it out, alternately laughing and wondering why Otabek had gone for something so old-fashioned. (Yuri’s Instagram obsession is nothing new, but Otabek cannot explain why it won’t work.) One by one, the pictures pile up, tucked away in a box by Otabek’s bed.

Yuri practicing, out on the ice, caught just before a jump. Yuri in the ballet studio, tying up his shoes, or flying across the dance floor. Yuri in his living room, stretching after training; dozing off on the couch, with Potya curled up by his chest. Yuri in the early morning sun, at a park, laughing at something Otabek said, pink stained over the tops of his cheeks and a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth.

Otabek looks at him, this impossible and uncontainable boy, and thinks, _I don’t want to leave him._

 

_(I love him.)_

 

When Yuri comes to him, quiet words and hesitations, a confession trembling at the tips of his fingers and on his lips, it is the happiest and most heartbreaking moment of Otabek’s life.

He smiles, reaches out. Gathers Yuri in his arms and kisses him, soft and sweet. Yuri leans into him easily, palm warm over Otabek’s heart.

He tells Yuri, _I know. I love you too._

 

(He avoids making any promise to stay.)

 

Otabek looks at all the photos he’s collected, all the pieces of Yuri that have lodged themselves between his ribs and in his lungs. All these things he has to leave behind.

Still, he doesn’t regret coming here. Meeting Yuri, seeing him skate, letting him make a home in Otabek’s heart -- Otabek doesn’t regret any of it.

 

On a Thursday morning, Yuri invites Otabek to watch him practice.

“I have something to show you,” he says over the phone, teasing and happy.

“I’ll be there,” Otabek promises, and he goes.

At the rink, Yuri tells him that he’s finished his new program for the upcoming season, and he wants to show it to Otabek, because this time he’s skating for Otabek -- his new program is dedicated to him.

“Don’t take your eyes off me,” Yuri says, commanding and certain, but he needn’t have, because Otabek would never look away.

(His heart is in his throat; his chest hurts. He is so in love with this boy, and Yuri is offering the most precious thing he has, a piece of his whole self.)

He brings the camera up, because this, too, he wants to keep, to hold on to.

 

Holding the photo in his hands, the realization and recognition hit him like a freight train.

 

It’s the photo -- it’s _the_ photo, the one he’d found in that magazine, the one that had led him all the way back here, a photo of a boy with sunshine hair. Out on the ice, Yuri skates like poetry, like he wants people to hold their breath when they see him, wants to stun the world, and Otabek cannot tear his eyes away. Yuri is a sweeping force of grace, a supernova, and god but Otabek loves this boy.

When Yuri finishes, comes off the ice and over to Otabek, all eagerness and uncertainty -- when he comes close, Otabek simply kisses him, and it is a confession, an admission, an apology; it is everything he feels poured into the only gesture Otabek can think to give.

( _I love you,_ is what he says, in the way his hands cradle Yuri’s face, in the way he pulls Yuri against him, in the way he presses his mouth to sunshine hair and breathe in as much of this boy as he can, to lock away in his heart.)

“Thank you,” he murmurs, drawing away to look Yuri in the eye.

When he leans back in, Yuri is halfway there to meet him.

 

Later, back in his room, Otabek looks at all the photos he’s collected, piled in their tiny box.

For all the inevitability of what comes next, it still hurts.

 

He lets it hurt.

 

Otabek brings the box to Yuri one morning, presses it into slender hands and says, “this is for you.”

When Yuri looks up at him, perplexed, Otabek smiles and says, “I can't stay here any longer. I have to go.”

The explanation is quiet, simple. _I’m not from here, I’m not supposed to be here,_ but Otabek is here because he'd seen a photo of a boy on the ice and wanted to know who it was. And he’s found that boy, now, he’s seen that boy skate, he’s fallen in love.

“But I can't stay,” Otabek says, and it’s the most painful thing, because Yuri is looking at him with wide eyes and a broken expression, clutching the box, in a way that begs Otabek not to be saying this.

There are splinters and ice in Otabek’s lungs as he pulls Yuri in, kisses sunshine hair, and says, “I’m sorry.”

 

When Otabek returns to his time, he looks for the magazine again. This time, he checks if it says who’d taken the photo.

It doesn’t, and it makes him laugh.

 

In Yuri’s time, when he’s a little older, when he’s won almost everything and his heart is healed, he’s approached by a magazine that wants to feature the top skaters going into the upcoming Winter Games. For a personal touch, or so they say, the staff also ask if he has any photos he’d like to include in the article.

As they sort through his collection, Mila picks up one photo and holds it up.

“How about this one?” she asks.

Yuri looks at the photo and feels his breath catch, feels something warm in his chest. He takes the photo from Mila, corner of his mouth curling up in a smile.

(He remembers warm hands, an easy laugh, a Polaroid camera.)

Says, “okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come find me on social media; I'm [@okw_tr](https://twitter.com/okw_tr) on Twitter and [okwtr](https://okwtr.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. You can check there for updates on my projects and ways to support my writing. (I mostly write Voltron rn tho.)


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